Multimedia cards (MMCs) and other storage card formats are well known today as a means of providing external memory capacity for storing information of interest to a user. Such cards are used principally in handheld devices, such as digital cameras, cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
A disadvantage associated with these cards is their reliance on the software loaded in the handheld device to process (e.g., decode, expand, etc.) the content (e.g., digital photographs, video games, etc.) that the cards contain. Such processing programs must be in the memory of the handheld device to which the cards are attached. This means that the handheld device must have sufficient memory to retain the processing program. It also means that the handheld device must have a processing program capable of decoding/decrypting the particular encoding/encryption format of the content in the card.